


Fandot Creativity Night 10

by timeladyleo



Series: Fandot Creativity [7]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: F/M, Fandot Creativity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 12:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4706273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeladyleo/pseuds/timeladyleo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several little drabbles written for the tenth Fandot Creativity Night .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Zoo

**Author's Note:**

> Or at least I _think_ it's the tenth one, anyway.

There were few things Arthur loved more than the zoo. He loved the animals: the birds and fish and penguins and tigers and polar bears. Carolyn had taken him to several over the years, mostly when he was younger to cheer him up. 

It had amused her when Arthur had asked to to go on their day off in Edinburgh with Martin and Douglas so he could show them both all the brilliant animals. Both their reactions were priceless, trying to look interested but failing. She had glared at them both until they had agreed to take him, neither having the nerve to challenge Carolyn or heart to disappoint Arthur. 

That was how Martin ended up with a panda hat and a plastic grizzly bear - Arthur had decided that bears were the best - while Arthur and Douglas volunteered to throw fish at penguins. Douglas had done it before, that or he was just really good at it like everything else. Martin could imagine him feeding penguins with his daughter in the past, because frankly no-one could throw fish so perfectly first time. 

Arthur certainly couldn’t. But from the grin on his face, he was having fun.


	2. Sparks Fly

Herc didn’t dislike fireworks as such, he just wasn’t so fond of the noise and the blinding light and the way that November was in the middle of winter when it was freezing cold. He also wasn’t so fond of bonfires, and the way that you were either close enough to feel like you were melting or just too far away to be warm with no in-between.

He also wasn’t sure if Arthur should be wielding the sparklers quite like he was, as though they were swords of fire rather than- well, sticks of fire. Carolyn seemed unbothered by it, tending to the fire by throwing large logs and what Herc was fairly sure was the remains of an old wooden bench onto it. 

One of the advantages of having a huge house and huge garden was that you could have actually have a bonfire on bonfire night. Carolyn had invited all of MJN over, not arguing when Martin had brought Theresa as well, and had lit the fire with them all together. And given Arthur sparklers. 

He bounced over to Herc who leaned back to avoid the flying sparks. “Look, Herc! I’m writing my name!” Arthur waved the sparkler around frantically, in a way that could have been letters if you were looking closely. Herc nodded with a pained smile, still concerned about Arthur and fire. 

Arthur pointed with the sparkler. “Look! Mum’s lighting the fireworks!” Herc tensed in worry again, preparing for the noise. Carolyn walked back over to the group, taking her place next to Herc as the first one shot into the sky. 

As it exploded everyone said “Oooo!” in unison. Herc still flinched at the noise, making Carolyn laugh, though as he put his arm around her he decided that maybe fireworks weren’t so bad after all.


	3. before

It was strange, looking back now, to think about how MJN struggled on for all those years, before the plane was made of gold, before Carolyn had had enough money to run a business properly. It seemed like something strange and distant now, worrying about going bust on every trip.

Strange how before she hadn’t been able to pay the captain, or how they’d had to fly Birling around so he’d pay them (she didn’t need his money any more, so she didn’t need to put up with his insufferable rudeness and so had told him in more words to get lost). Now they didn’t have to budget quite as tightly, even though Douglas had argued with her about still being stingy with money now she was a millionaire. 

Strange how there was a time before she knew the man with a sheep phobia, and more white socks than a normal human being needed. How she had thought before that she was better by herself, that she didn’t need anyone. That was still true, she didn’t _need_ Herc but she _wanted_ him and that made all the difference. 

The best part about the after was that he still didn’t expect her to become soppy and overly affectionate. He just expected her to be the same as before, even after the wedding. And that was why she loved him.


	4. Full Moon

One of Arthur’s most prized possessions were his binoculars. They had been a gift from Carolyn years ago when he had first started stargazing. He liked to map out the stars and his favourite constellations, drawing them carefully and adding the paper to the file where he kept the rest. It was his one well organised thing. 

His favourite thing to do, however, was to turn his gaze to the moon and draw that. He had many doodles of the moon in his file, some neat and others just circles and scribbles. Each year he looked up the full moon dates and added them to his calendar to remind him to look up. 

The neatest drawing was labelled with the seas, the Sea of Tranquility underlined because that was his favourite one. Almost every time he remembered to look at the full moon he drew a new diagram. Even though he could draw one without looking, he enjoyed drawing what he could see and comparing it to the others just to check it was still the same. It always was. 

One day he hoped to get a telescope big enough to be able to see Jupiter’s moons (Io was his favourite of them). Then he could draw new planets and see how the placement of the moons changed. Until then, he was satisfied with the moon he had.


	5. "With you till the end of the line"

When Carolyn asked Herc to marry her, she knew that to him it was a way of showing that he loved her. She also knew that that was what the others would think, that she’d finally given in and admitted her feelings for him. 

Feelings were complicated and messy and inconvenient, so Carolyn saw their marriage as less of a statement of love and as more of a promise. The promise that it would be the last one for them both, the promise that they would both be there for one another in years still to come. 

This was why Carolyn had written her own vows, so it could be absolutely clear that this marriage was less of a ‘you are the love of my life’ thing and more of a ‘I quite like having you around, please don’t leave’ thing. She didn’t mind that for Herc it might be more the former, because she knew that he didn’t mind that for her it was the latter. 

So that was what she promised him, that if he stayed, she would be there until the end.


	6. Unexpectedly Wet

One of the many joys of living with Arthur was that almost everything he did was a surprise. Herc wouldn’t have expected him to like gardening, in the loose sense in which gardening applied to Arthur. As far as Herc could tell was this just watering the flowers. Though he wasn’t sure that a hosepipe was the best tool for watering Carolyn's hanging baskets. 

Arthur always managed to come in from watering soaking wet, to Carolyn’s despair who sent him off to get changed “Immediately now.” Herc sat and smiled at the exchange in the kitchen from the sofa in the living room. 

What he didn’t expect was a soaking wet dog to bound in and jump on him. “Snoopadoop!” he shouted, mostly in surprise as she rolled over on his lap, looking up at him and wagging her tail. 

Carolyn walked in with a towel and a smirk at seeing Herc’s face and lifted Snoopadoop off him and into the kitchen. He could hear her praising the dog from the other room as he got up to get changed into something drier.


End file.
